


I guess thats why (they call it a dogfight)

by Silverfishy



Category: Free!
Genre: Alpha Rin, Alpha Sousuke, Alpha/Alpha Relationship, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst, M/M, Omega Nitori Aiichirou, Trope Subversion/Inversion, bros
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-23 23:05:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6133237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverfishy/pseuds/Silverfishy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It`s not fair, Aiichiro thinks. If Rin, hell, if either of them had only fallen in love with Aiichiro instead then this whole mess would have been so much easier. Alphas aren't meant to fall for each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I guess thats why (they call it a dogfight)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [superdrive0](https://archiveofourown.org/users/superdrive0/gifts).
  * Inspired by [i guess thats why (they call it a dogfight)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6133159) by [Silverfishy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverfishy/pseuds/Silverfishy). 



Aiichiro finds Sousuke sitting at the bottom of the steps leading up to their apartment complex. He`s scowling, nursing a split lip as a dark bruise begins to purple around his cheekbone. Aiichiro runs his eyes over the expected litany of scratches, some bloody but most just harsh red lines over Sousuke`s forearms and collarbones peeking out from the loose shirt he`s thrown on, and sighs.

Dumping his bag on the ground by Sousuke`s feet, he sits down next to him and joins the contemplation of the weeds growing up between the cracks in the concrete. "You guys have another fight?" He asks, already knowing the answer, and Sousuke grunts in reply.

They sit there in silence for a bit. "How`re the guys?" Sousuke eventually asks.

"Fine. Momotaro`s swim meet went well, and he and Seijuro have a new video game they`re constantly trying to drag me into playing." He watches Sousuke carefully for any reaction to the name of the other alpha in their little circle of friends, but there`s nothing. He lets a sigh he hadn`t realised he was holding go. "Nanase was talking about going clubbing next week for his birthday."

"You saw him?" Sousuke looks up, a little surprised, and Nitori shrugs. 

"He and Tachibana came over once the coast was clear. Tachibana says he misses you guys." Sousuke makes a face like he`s about to complain but the both of them know that he`s been living like a hermit recently, Rin getting dragged along with him as they try to sort out the mess their lives have become.

"How is he?" Aiichiro says softly, and Sousuke`s eyes scrunch up small like he`s in pain.

"Angry." He bites out. "Frustrated. I know the feeling only too well."

It`s not fair, Aiichiro thinks. If Rin, hell, if either of them had only fallen in love with Aiichiro instead then this whole mess would have been so much easier. But it hadn`t seemed important back when this whole affair had started, back when they`d all been in high school, their whole lives ahead of them.

Aiichiro has a memory clear as day of all of them at a swim meet just out of town, he and Sousuke sitting on the top of the bleachers during a break swinging their legs and talking about nothing. They`d watched Rin and the others talking to the Iwatobi guys and played the game where they tried to guess everyone`s dynamics. 

It`s a game everyone plays growing up, even though they don`t know when exactly anyone will present, even if they claim not to, trying to figure out who`s going to be alpha and beta and omega. Some are easy to see, like Nagisa, who`d always taken everything easily, laughing and letting himself be pulled around so that when he`d presented as omega at seventeen last year it had felt more like a `yeah, and?` than anything else. Some seem to come out of the blue, like little Momotaro who`d been tiny, bratty and adorable until he /wasn`t/ anymore, until puberty rampaged through his system and left him tall, broad and suddenly /alpha/ one day. Seijuro said he`d seen it coming but Aiichiro hadn`t been expecting Momotaro to present for years and it`d felt like too much, too soon. 

After Momotaro came Nanase and Tachibana in quick succession, happily beta and just as happily hooking up soon after (privately, Aiichiro thinks it`d been going on for years). Sousuke and Aiichiro had matured way back in the first year of high school and for a while it`d seemed like they were a natural pair, alpha-omega friends who`d grown up together and were just waiting for hormones to drive them into each other arms. Aiichiro couldn`t even say that he`d never thought about it, especially not in those first few months of heats so intense and painful that he`d have taken anything, anyone to make the pain go away until they figured out his correct suppressant dosage. But they were friends, and without the molten core of heat under his skin he didn`t feel that way about Sousuke, nor the other boy about him. Especially not when every day Rin was making his way into their lives and Sousuke`s heart, passionate and sharp and a little bit reckless with his hands and his mouth.

Rin had been the last one in their gang to present, and they`d teased him about it good-naturedly but it wasn`t /that/ rare to still be unpresented at nineteen, just unusual. A late bloomer, but Rin had always joked that as a beta he wouldn`t end up being that different to an unpresented anyway. Sousuke and Rin had finally stopped dancing around the topic and gotten together in their last year of high school, and it`d been two years of staying up way too late racing, and talking, and making out that turned into moans that Aiichiro could hear uncomfortably loud through their shared wall.

Some people had thought he was crazy, moving into a house with an alpha he wasn`t mated to, but all he`d had to tell his mom was that it was Sousuke and she`d calmed right down and invited all three of them for dinner. Aiichiro goes to university, always cooks enough to make a ton of leftovers, and disappears for four days each month to Nanase and Tachibana`s apartment or the Mikoshiba house whenever the heat strikes and he needs to be stopped from making friendship-altering decisions like begging his oldest friend to fuck him sideways.

And then Rin had presented, and the carefully balanced nature of their friendship circle had begun to waver. 

He`d actually been there the first time it happened, had woken up to a loud crash and growls that had had him jumping out of bed and racing to Sousuke and Rin`s room to see if they were okay.

They`d been on opposite sides of the room, Sousuke crouched against the wall breathing hard with swollen lips over bared teeth directed at Rin, who was on the bed with a wild, almost feral look in his eyes.

Rin was the one growling. 

"Guys?" Aiichiro had murmured, and two sets of hard, angry, /alpha/ eyes had snapped to his and made him almost step backwards, legs trembling with the force of the biological imperative to /submit/. He`d held his ground, though, and the distraction had seemed to break some of the tension in the room, Rin and Sousuke glancing back at each other in wary surprise. 

Rin had presented as alpha, and suddenly nothing about the relationship was simple anymore. 

It`s not just the sex, although Aiichiro knows far more than he`d like about Sousuke and Rin`s bedroom troubles after Sousuke dragged him to a bar one night and proceeded to get wasted and spill all the things troubling him. As if he hadn`t been able to tell from the way the sounds filtering through his bedroom wall lately had been less pleased moans and more angry, choked swears that more often than not ended in snarls and broken furniture. 

Alphas aren`t meant to fall in love with each other. Aiichiro`s an omega all the time, but the only time he really feels it is in heat week, the rest of the time his latent submissive tendencies just making him a little more agreeable, a little more prone to de-escalating fights rather than starting them. Sousuke`s been an alpha for years, king of his own hill, his territory claimed and marked, and the tension caused by Momotaro`s presenting had only lasted until the two of them playfought and Sousuke`d pinned Momotaro`s cheek to the ground with his arms behind his back, laying a hard kiss full of teeth on the back of the sixteen-year old`s head. They`re the only two now who don`t race each other, and Sousuke says it`s because they`ve nothing left to prove but Aiichiro thinks Momotaro`s just smart enough to let the status quo stand. 

Rin`s only been an alpha for a couple of months, full of hormones he doesn`t know how to handle yet, and instincts which tell him to /claim/ and /fight/ and /dominate/. When Sousuke tries to assert it just comes out as a challenge, and the two of them fight real battles over the bed, the kitchen table, the TV remote.

Rin had tried to explain it to him, one night when Aiichiro`d come home late to find him nursing a beer on the couch and staring at a dead TV, Sousuke stormed out of the house somewhere. Simple requests with even the slightest hint of an order about them got his hackles raising, and when one of them snapped back or squared up to the other it was like higher brain function started getting siphoned off. It was so difficult to control Rin`s anger, passion turned into fury at Sousuke`s casual dominance, protectiveness that Rin had used to love becoming a sign that he thought Rin was weak, or submissive. The one time they`d tried racing together since it happened had resulted in a black eye and a cut the size of Aiichiro`s finger on the back of Rin`s head where Sousuke had shoved him into wall in the locker room. Aiichiro`s still not sure some days whether it was the fact that Rin was seriously hurt or the blood all over his gym bag that had snapped Sousuke out of it that day, and he hopes that he never has to find out.

"Do you ever think maybe-" Aiichiro begins, but Sousuke holds up a hand before he can even get the words out.

"No. I love you, man-" And that`s something Aiichiro still gets warm fuzzies from even if they`re completely platonic in nature. "But not like that. Having an omega around would only fix things for a few days a month; hell, it might even make everything worse." Aiichiro`d considered that, they all have. Even if either one of them was interested enough in Aiichiro to make adding him to the mix a possibility, there`s a very real chance that having an omega around, especially an omega in heat, would just amp up Sousuke and Rin`s alpha sides until they were doing more than just laying punches into each other. Aiichiro`s seen the fights over territory as inconsequential as bathroom time, he doesn`t want to imagine what fights over the territory of an omega`s body would be like.

But he hadn`t meant that. "I was going to say, do you ever think about breaking up?" The stunned pause should be enough to stop him, but he`s got to know, got to make sure. "Decide it`s just too hard, give up, just take a break?" Sousuke`s looking at him and Aiichiro`s words had been soft enough that he can see the other man giving real thought to the question. The answer`s still the same.

"No." Sousuke whispers, eventually. "Never."

A sound from above makes them both look up, up the steps to the entrance of the apartment block where Rin is standing, clutching the door in his hands and looking awkwardly at the two of them. Mostly at Sousuke. Aiichiro smiles a little to himself, and stands, brushing dust off of his pants before picking up his bag and heading up the stairs. "Nice to see you, man." He says, patting the man on the shoulder before slipping past him into the entranceway.

He pauses, long enough to hear the tap of shoes going back down the stone steps, then pokes his head out of the doorway again. He watches the way Rin sinks down on the same step as Sousuke, a little space between their bodies before he hesitantly presses closer to the other boy, their shoulders one uneven, but unbroken line. Some of the tension seems to escape from Sousuke`s back as Aiichiro watches, and the soft low murmurs of voices follow him up the stairs as he ducks back inside.

Yeah. It`s okay. For now.

**Author's Note:**

> what even is this ending


End file.
